For anyone unfamiliar, the way it used to work was this:
250 wood for church, 1 shipment for the church card and 800 food, would turn all your Longbows into Rangers and give you 8(?) additional rangers as a shipment, plus change any Longbow unit cards in your deck into Ranger cards you could send later. This is all in Age 2.
In Age 3, you had potentially the option to get more Rangers from aging up, plus more from the home city if you had Longbow cards in your deck.
In Age 4, you could unlock Ranger training in place of longbows with the Ranger card. This also changes the tooltips and icons for the longbow cards, although the effects on both units remain the same.
Presently, as of the newest patch, the ability to augment your army with additional Longbows from the age up and from cards are removed. In order to use Rangers in Age 2, itâs a huge investment of XP and resources to unlock a unit. Doing so is seriously disincentivised when you will have less or none of them during the midgame. Likewise, investing into a unit with things like counter-infantry rifling, makes less sense when you have less of them.
In EITHER SCENARIO, the Longbow upgrade cards (Yeoman and Siege Archery) will give bonuses to both Longbows and Rangers. However, one can now entirely forego the Rangers card. Itâs extremely user-unfriendly however, to have a 15% damage and HP boost for the rangers coming from the Siege Archery card which doesnât even mention that it does this on the tooltip. The Yeoman card is a bit less user-unfriendly, but still isnât ideal.
Previously, it was a high investment but reasonable reward option to use Rangers prior to Age 4. They were underutilised but excellent units, offering playstyle choice and variety. In the present configuration, I donât think they are even circumstantially viable until Age 4, which is a real shame as I enjoyed playing with these units early game.
I would strongly implore the developers to:
Reconsider the Longbow unit cards and age up rewards being reverted back to Rangers.
Update the tooltip on Siege Archery appropriately to make its effects clear to new players.
I agree with your point, and would ask that not only rangers, but any other unit that changes because of a tech or shipment (like nizams or the new unit that replaces war wagons for Germans with a shipment) , should always change the shipments and age up rewards too, as a rule.
The odd things with rangers are, as is the case from the very beginning:
It is not a better unit than longbow, but hid behind huge xp investments (even need one additional card to be comparable to other skirms). The most important stats of a skirm are the range and the multiplier, and it lacks both. In short I spend a church card + a tech or an age 4 card just to gain access to a unit that really needs another card (longbow however does not need the yeoman card to be useful)
The age 4 card somewhat overlaps with the age 4 church tech.
I think at least one of this needs to be done:
Re-purpose either the age 4 ranger card or age 4 ranger tech to grant the guard upgrade
One of the upgrades (e.g. veteran) gives back normal (+2) range.
Yeah itâs just bad in itâs current state, might be slightly better vs heavy inf in regards to the multiplier but longbow just have far superior dps anyway.
They should just actually commit to changes instead of doing these weird replacement units. Just have Rangers available by default in Age 4 as a distinct unit instead of something that overlaps with Longbows.
Longbows should be higher base damage generalists and Rangers should be specialists with higher multipliers versus specific units. Split their upgrading technologies and cards so that players have to choose which to prioritize. The base stats of Rangers could be buffed to a default range of 20 and a heavy infantry multiplier of x2, and Longbowmen could lose their Imperial upgrade to give a little more incentive to switch to Rangers.
Cards could be altered as follows:
Yeomen: Increase attack for all archers and allows Longbowmen to gain promotions that increase attack and range (the card no longer directly increases range)
Siege Archery: All archers gain the ability to attack buildings from range and +1 range to Longbows
Baker Rifles: +4 range to Rangers and +1 range to all other rifle infantry
Ranger Combat: Increases overall strength of Rangers (any other boosts to multipliers could be added to this card or give it the ability to enable Rangers in Age 3)
Glorious Revolution: Queenâs Rangers upgrade swaps the Longbow cards
Rangers: Just scrap this card
So overall if you wanted to use both youâd need to commit 4 card slots, but if you wanted to just pick one youâd free up a couple slots.
Unit card swaps are only useful when are a direct upgrade o game changer (xbows to skirms, strelets to musks)
Locking a unit that is niche is a waste of xp. I would say that british should get rangers by default.
Not sure yet about landwehrs. At least from some shipments that allows you new units, make them ship some of them. (Prince Electors, Chevauglegers, Landwehrs)
Chevaulegers are great, itâs nice to finally gave a quick goon unit and these are pretty strong. Landwehrs are not bad but considering you donât get any units shipped with card is a bummer and limits their usefulness since you switch to skirms in age 3 anyway, but in general their high base damage make them quite versatile if you do send them, Prince Electors is completely useless imo, since you donât get any of the native techs and the Musketeers are only enabled in age 3, I could ship Brigadiers in age2 or ship Mercenary camps and just build giant grenadiers instead.
I agree, Rangers should be like Bersaglieri, unlocked by default at IV age, and not replacing Pavisiers/Longbowmen. Some card can unlock Rangers earlier.
Prince Elector counts could ship some alliance units when you ally, otherwise is a big investment (1 card + royal embassy building) for units that are limited and cost pop.
This way the Brits get their own skirm unit but much later on than most other euro civ which is what it should be, plus it works historically too - the British didnât push much resource into light infantry until later in the AoE3 timeline.
I think the Age IV card or the 2nd church upgrade should dub them as âGreen Jacketsâ and grant 10%/10% possibly give them stealth since it was camouflage.
Renaming them as Green jackets makes sense historically, itâs what they were called when not referred to the 95th or just riflemen, also fits with the Redcoats name for musketeers.
Renaming the indian card to something else and changing the british rangers card to âRoyal Green Jacketsâ also makes sense.
The ranger is a much better unit than the longbow, in my opinion. Itâs the highest damage output + most mobile skirm. Itâs AMAZING if microed properly, but a bit limited without its range until the cards fix it. So, itâs an insane overall investment of many cards and some resources, but itâs an exceptional unit. Itâs paper thin, so vs other skirms it performs badly, but kiting cav and shredding infantry itâs unparalleled. In my opinion, itâs the best skirmisher at being a skirmisher. Cassador being a close second.
In the current patch though, itâs just too much of a barrier to be able to tech into though.
I do not understand why they change this unit again and again. Why do not just unlock training ranger in barrack, so that players can train both longbow and ranger?
I like that the Ranger was previously locked behind the church/cards because it felt like I could spend XP not just to upgrade a unit, but to have a different unit, which I personally preferred. It felt like a playstyle choice, a decision I can make or not make, which lets me play differently.
In its current iteration, I donât think that decision is justifiable until Age 4. If it was freely available, I donât think thereâd be a decision, I think the longbow would become obsolete much like the Skirmisher kills off the Crossbow. If it was a direct switcharoo, the option to play long range longbows lategame is removed from the players who like that playstyle.
Needs to go back to last patch but with better tooltips and the upgrade bug fixed. They almost got it perfect.
It does not change the related cards though but does that matter? If you donât send the Rangers card the Yeoman card does not transform into the Baker Rifles card. Also the Siege Archery card does that have a transformed version too? Iâve lost track.
Siege Archery gives the rangers 15% damage/HP. Yeoman gives them the range. Rangers card in Age 4 is not required. (Explained this in the initial post.)
The issue is the removal of the rangers from future card shipments and the Age 3 age-up reward making the Age 2 investment to access them so cost ineffective as to be prohibitive now.